GEOWEB System

Superior for
Heavy Load Support
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) maintains a very special research facility near Pueblo, Colorado, the Transportation Technology Center (TTC). Within the TTC is the Facility for Accelerated
Service Testing (with the apt acronym FAST) where years of extreme stress conditions can be applied in a few months. On FASTs
High Tonnage Loop, a 2.7 mile loop of track dedicated to High Axle
Loads (called HALs, denoting 35-tons or more), some remarkable testing has been performed on the GEOWEB Cellular Confinement System.
The goal of the testing at FAST was to evaluate the
effects of repeated heavy loads on the Perforated
GEOWEB System installed over a soft subgrade. The
soft subgrade was constructed from highly expansive
Vicksburg Buckshot Clay, an ASTM Reference Soil
imported from Mississippi for this purpose. The clay
was placed at 30% moisture content in a five foot deep,
700 foot long trench along a section of the High Tonnage Loop, known as the Low Track Modulus (LTM)
test zone. The test train operations are designed to
accumulate approximately 1 million gross tons (MGT)
per day, running on a continuous basis at no more than
40 mph speed. Numerous geosythetic materials had
previously been tested under the track in the LTM zone,
but ballast tamping was still required on an average
every 15 MGT of loading. This time, however, the Perforated GEOWEB System was placed in the sub-ballast layer in readiness for the repeated application of
39 ton axle loads. To ensure that the testing would
capture the worst case condition for clay subgrades,
fire hoses were used to simulate two 500 year rainfall
events, saturating the highly expansive clay subgrade
during a dry mid-winter period between snow storms
and snow melt conditions. Researchers found that the
support offered by the Perforated GEOWEB System
was not affected by the added water.

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GEOWEB is a registered trademark of Presto Products Company

Copyright 2000 Soil Stabilization Products Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

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The Perforated GEOWEB System is a versatile high density polyethylene

honeycomb which can be used for load support, earth retention, slope protection, and channel protection applications. When properly installed for load
support applications, loads are spread across the system and the three-dimensional webwork behaves like a stiff but flexible horizontal laminar element beneath the load bearing surface. The GEOWEB Cellular Confinement System
has prior to this testing provided excellent support across soft subgrade conditions for other heavy rail applications, for railroad intermodal yards with daily
truck traffic and semi trailer parking, and for other heavy load and soft subgrade
problems common to highway and transportation structures.
Prior to installation of the Perforated GEOWEB System, the unreinforced track
over this section of highly expansive clay had required ballast tamping every
one million gross tons (MGT) of loading under 315,000-pound car operation.
An early report on the testing of the GEOWEB installation prepared by Steve
Chrismer at TTC in Railway Age (9/97) noted that the track geometry error was
still well within acceptable limits after (at that time) 64 MGT operation (already
more than 4 times the average reinforcement benefit provided by other
geosynthetic product technologies such as geogrids and geotextiles). Steve
commented that the testing and track geometry measurements would continue
at least until the track requires surfacing so that the actual improvement in
tamping cycle can be determined.
However, two years later, Joe Lopresti, who replaced Steve Chrismer on this project, indicated
that, after almost 180 MGT, still with only minimal loss of track geometry, TTC had decided
to stop waiting for the track to require resurfacing. They have since discontinued the testing and will eventually remove the GEOWEB
installation in order to free up this section of
soft deformable clay subgrade for other planned
projects. After more than two years torture testing with a total load of 206.6 million gross tons
(including the incidental train traffic involved in
maintaining the less successful sections) the
GEOWEB section continued to perform flawlessly. At the time monitoring was discontinued by TTC the GEOWEB installation had provided almost 14 times the average reinforcement benefit of other geosythetic products
tested and with no indication of reduced system effectiveness or need for ballast tamping.

Example of GEOWEB System installation for track reinforcement.

The outstanding performance of the GEOWEB Cellular Confinement System in this worst case field testing program conducted by the Association of American Railroads correlates well with field installations and research programs conducted
with the GEOWEB Cellular Confinement System for highway applications and for rail applications by other national rail
organizations such as British Rail, Canadian National Rail and Japan Rail. The research at the AAR facility also further
supports the evidence that the GEOWEB cellular confinement technology offers far greater performance benefits for load
support applications than geogrids and geotextile products, and it offers a solution for situations where other geosynthetic
products fail to deliver long term stabilization.

SOIL STABILIZATION PRODUCTS COMPANY, INC.

PO Box 2779, Merced, CA 95344-0779
Phone: (209) 383-3296 or (800) 523-9992 Fax: (209) 383-7849
E-mail: info@sspco.org Website: http://www.sspco.org
3897.GW

GEOWEB is a registered trademark of Presto Products Company

Copyright 2000 Soil Stabilization Products Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

Page 2 of 2